I’m starting this year with a little story based on a dream I had a while back. I hope you’ll enjoy reading it.
I don’t usually wake up at dawn—never have I tried beyond alarms that I dismiss rather than snooze—but yesterday, after staring at the streaks of light on the ceiling for a while, I checked my phone: 4 a.m. What seemed off was the light and not the hour. Perhaps it was too intriguing to fall back asleep. I had never seen those streaks before. Expected from unusual hours, I concluded.
It wasn’t remarkable, just abnormal—something beyond the time or the light that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. If I remember correctly, I fell asleep at 6 and woke up at 10, as usual. It was a winter morning, I reckon later that day. Whatever it was, it was over and I had no evidence of it ever happening other than memories. I didn’t even get out of bed, it might as well be an overly realistic dream.
Next December it happened again. The same streaks that I had stared at appeared and lured me in, keeping my eyes fixed on them. What I recollect doesn’t allow me to describe it any more seductively than a light-orange line against a white wall, neither can I mesmerise myself with the thoughts. But I remember feeling it, observing myself struggling to find any sound to build my thoughts upon. All this time I wanted to be sceptical and collect some evidence that it was really a dream.
The whole day I was piecing together the words I wanted to form back then. Dead people grow below your bed, echoed in my mind. Maybe it was just the rhyme of it, and the actual sentence was entirely different—perhaps, Debt keeps you low below your bed. This would certainly make more sense in my dreams. Still, Dead people grow below your bed, sounded the most perfect.
I check under my bed ever since…
The next winter, I was more lucid and could contemplate more of it. I still checked under my bed and even started vacuuming there every few days. The wood of my bed was rotting and gave off some fine dust that needed to be cleaned.
The light on my eyelids was red but I could make out the shades they’d been. Yellow or orange or something in between fell on my eyes those winter mornings. I didn’t want to open my eyes. I was in a different place which had bruises of liminality. I was afraid to open my eyes. The mornings slowly became terrifying and I started taking sleeping pills just to be asleep in those early hours.
It had been slow, but I saw the tile cracking and a small rubbery pug formed through it. There have been times when I ran the vacuum nozzle over it, trying to pluck it out, forgetting it rooted much below the ground.
Those days had been wicked. I could finally wake up at dawn as I did when the light wilted me. My room was brighter than at noon and through the windows, I could see the bright orange sky. The sky was deep and had light of its own, it made the clouds appear as white smears of watercolour on it. The few birds there flew towards trees or poles or anything they could find. I was mesmerised like on the first day. I stared at it like a fool. I wanted to go out and experience it myself, it was the same urge that gets you out on a thunderstorm.
I wanted to go out but was too invested to even blink. Suddenly there was a little tug on my shirt, it wasn’t enough to move me the slightest but involuntarily I turned. The darkness of my bright room blinded my eyes which were adjusted for the sky. I got an urge to keep rolling till I fell off my bed.
I was facing the bed, looking under it, smelling the rotting wood. It had been slow but I saw a man creeping up the tile. It had its veins exposed and some blood could still be seen running through them, though slow and with bubbles. It was half melting, and my heartbeat rose. I was stuck there. The light or darkness, whatever it was, was entering my skin from the back. I could sense it. I could sense it crawling into me…
I woke on my bed, it was the usual 10 o’clock. I breathed. Perhaps it was really a dream.
Not too long after when I slid the blanket to the side and tried getting up my bed, it creaked. It always creaked, but now it was ear-piercing. I got my legs on the ground and the bed studs gave up. It broke diagonally through the centre. I fell and felt the broken wood edges stabbing something soft. I heard a voice similar to someone squeezing the last bit of air from a deflated balloon. My back hurt as I was sitting on the folding edge of two wood planks. In this haste, my feet were cold like I had just dipped them in a running lake. Blood slowly soaked them.
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very interesting Rick, nice one. that last paragraph is 🔥. don't the best inspirations always come from dreams? keep the short stories coming!